Saturday, November 26, 2011

Sapphire Blue Closes its doors...

For almost three years, I have been excited to see this logo across the top of covers emblazoned with my name.

Now, in an instant, everything changed.

"For those of you who haven't heard, the official announcement happened this morning at 6:30am. Sapphire Blue Publishing is closing its doors."

This is a sad day. Sapphire Blue was the first one to give my writing a home. Through them, I met many amazing authors, editors and contacts in the publishing world that I wouldn't have been sure how to even deal with correctly if not for the wisdom and support that they were more than willing to offer.

I have branched out since then. I have other places I like to hang out as well. But it was always with the knowledge that I had my safe and cozy home at SBP and that if I had a question, there were a ton of people I could ask who wouldn't judge or think badly of me for asking.

Lucky for me... those people are still around.

But the ending of a company like this is sort of like a family breaking up. Having been a child of divorce, the feelings are quite similar. You can't control it. You can't stop it. It is scary.

I think that I will keep in touch with quite a few of my 'siblings' from the SBP family. That is the great thing that this company did. They united authors.

And with the usual class and grace that I have come to expect from all dealings with SBP, they reverted the rights to our work within an hour of notifying us that they were closing. There was no battle to get them back, no question of whether we would have to pay to get them back- Here. These are your books.

On top of that, SBP has granted us the use of our cover art. All in all, classy.

If I had it to do all over again, would I have chosen a house that was going to close this far into my career? Would I have risked it if I had known that they wouldn't be around as long as I plan to be?

YES. Because the experience was awesome. The people were amazing. The support was off the charts. This company did some really awesome things in its run. I was really lucky to have gotten to come along for the ride.

And to all of my 'siblings' from SBP who are feeling a little lost today and grieving...

Chin up! SBP picked you because they saw something awesome. Others will see it, too. For those of you who were newer, those of us who have been around a minute are still here for ya.

4 comments:

Great to hear that it was an amicable situation, as sometimes that can be a real pain in the butt. I'm hoping that they contracted the cover art in such a way that you're truly able to use it, though... :-\